12 College of Dental Medicine Students Inducted Into Dental Honor Society

One of the highest honors an NSU College of Dental Medicine (CDM) student can achieve is induction into the Omicron Kappa Upsilon (OKU) Chi Psi chapter—the national dental honor society. This year, OKU inducted 12 CDM students and two faculty members.
The group meets annually for the induction ceremony, which offers national recognition of a student’s highest achievement, noted Harvey A. Quinton, D.D.S., a professor in the CDM Department of Cariology and Restorative Dentistry.

The CDM student inductees were Nhung Dang, Lizette M. Garcia, Jared M. Gibby, Sravanthi Kadiyala, Jodi B. Malek, Steven W. McDaniel, Heidi Mederos, Jonathan Murray, An D. Nguyen, John T. Ritter, Anne A. Shaffer, and Maria R. Yang. The college’s dean, Linda C. Niessen, D.M.D., M.P.H., M.P.P., and Ana Karina Mascarenhas, B.D.S., Dr.P.H., M.P.H., associate dean of research, also were inducted.
Quinton—inducted into OKU in 1992 as a Columbia University faculty member—said he considers it an honor to identify inductees at NSU and asks them if he can introduce them at the ceremony, calling it a “good bonding situation among the students and the faculty.”

Omicron Kappa Upsilon was established in 1914 at Northwestern University Dental School to recognize students who distinguish themselves by high levels of scholarship. The NSU Chi Psi chapter was founded in 2000 as the 68th chapter of 70 chartered chapters and has 200 members in the categories of alumni, honorary, and faculty. Alumni members are senior students from the upper scholastic 20 percent of the class.

“From this group, a number constituting not more than 12 percent of the entire senior class are selected who, in addition to scholarship, have demonstrated exemplary traits of character and potential qualities of future professional growth and attainments,” Quinton said.